The telecom operators all over the world, not only in India, count the business revenues to make a big impact with 5G. One of the biggest use cases proven for 5G businesses is private networks. However, private wireless radio access network (RAN) revenues and shipments remain below expectations.
Stefan Pongratz, Vice President at Dell’ Oro Group, said the potential market calculations are still the same, and private wireless is still a huge opportunity.
“We still see that the enterprise and industrial game is a long game. This, coupled with the fact that the standalone LTE/5G market is developing at a slower pace than previously expected, sets the stage for the near-term downgrade,” added Pongratz.
This means that the kind of revenue the telcos expected from private wireless LTE/5G services isn’t there right now. But there is still a big opportunity for the telcos to capitalize with private 5G. However, it will only happen in the coming years and not in the short term. So it would be interesting to see how much the telcos spend on 5G spectrum and developing related/necessary infrastructure and how much money they spend on 4G especially the telcos in Indian market.
Indian telecom companies may not be so excited about 5G right now
India’s 5G spectrum auction is not far away. The telcos are already concerned about losing business use cases with 5G, as the government has decided to allocate spectrum directly to private network service companies. Looking at Dell’s Oro Group data and this report, the telcos’ enthusiasm for 5G would wane even further.
There aren’t too many consumer-related use cases right now and Indian consumers are expected to stick with 4G services for years to come. This could affect the amount of money the Indian telcos plan to spend on the 5G spectrum auction later this month.
